Lived Religion in a Plural Society: a Resource or Liability
Lived Religion in a Plural Society: a Resource or Liability

Summary/Abstract: Recently there has been renewed academic interest in religion that brings it back into the global political agenda. Religion in the post modern global order is fast emerging as a new organising principle in the face of multi-polarity, trans-nationality and sweeping pluralisation of peoples. Contrary to the secularist self-belief, the modern context has failed to take over the tradition including religion. Instead, a logical opposite seems to be happening, questioning the very presumptions of the modernity project. The present paper is a narrative on this creative tension in the religious modern and postmodern perspective. The paper is crafted into four sections. The first section seeks to pin down the genesis of “religious” in the search for social order and consciousness beyond the material world. The second section deals with the unfolding of the enlightenment project and its manifest consequence with the birth of secularism master theory. The third section delves deep into the immediate Indian religious lived experiences under foreign rule up to the sweeping spell of globalisation. The fourth and the final part of the essay makes a case for universality of a multicultural world and religious secularism.

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